Obama officials: NASA to get $6 billion for commercial rockets

January 27, 2010|By Robert Block, Orlando Sentinel Space Editor

CAPE CANAVERAL — Administration officials and a former astronaut on Wednesday called President Obama's plans for NASA "exciting" and "bold," saying he was replacing a failed moon program with a new $6 billion project to develop commercial rockets capable of taking astronauts into orbit.

They said it was all part of a broader plan to hike NASA's budget by an average of $1.3 billion annually over the next five years.

Part of that increase would cover a new technology research and development program, extension of the life of the International Space Station from 2015 to 2020, and investments in infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center to modernize the facility to maintain it as America's premier spaceport.

But conspicuous by its absence was any mention of a commitment to develop a new government-owned and operated "heavy-lift" rocket capable of taking humans beyond the low Earth Orbit.

The news teleconference at which the officials and astronaut spoke was organized for reporters at two Florida newspapers in response to the Orlando Sentinel's report on Tuesday, which said the White House budget next week would kill NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon and scrap the rockets being developed to take them there.

On the teleconference was an administration official, a NASA official and Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

"As you know, the current program of record did not hold water," said the NASA official, whom the White House did not identify. "The fact that we would have had a program where the space station didn't ever again have any humans launching from the United States to it until it was driven into the Pacific Ocean … we felt very, very strongly that this was not a program to be adopted."

But the NASA official stressed that just because the Constellation program to return humans to the moon and its Ares I and Ares V rockets were going to be canceled did not mean that the Obama administration was abandoning exploration and human spaceflight.

Both officials said there would be "a very significant program," the most important part of which was the effort to develop private space taxis to take crew back and forth to the space station.

"We do believe it is time for American companies to come into this program," the NASA official said, pointing out that for decades private companies have been launching precious satellites into space. "The investment in that will be $6 billion over five years. This is serious, serious investment that we believe will reduce that gap [in human spaceflight] from what it would have been with the program of record between shuttle retirement and the Ares I and Orion [capsule] coming on line."

Relying on private companies flying astronauts for NASA on fixed price contracts would be a major change in longstanding national space policy. Many space boosters in Congress are opposed to ditching Ares I and Orion for commercially operated spaceships that have yet to fly humans, fearing there will be a drop in safety standards.

But Ride, who recently served on a White House blue ribbon panel reviewing NASA human spaceflight plans, said she thought those concerns would be allayed by NASA's involvement in the design of the rockets and the safety procedures the companies would have to follow.

"NASA considers astronaut safety to be very important," Ride said.

The administration official said that resistance in Congress to the president's plan would soften when lawmakers became more familiar with what the budget did for America's space program.

The officials stressed that Florida in particular would benefit from investments in commercial and infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center that would help offset an expected 7,000 job losses when the shuttle program ends either later this year or early next.

However, none of the officials would say how much money or what plans existed for creating a NASA spaceship capable of launching humans beyond the space station. When asked, officials repeatedly dodged the question of what plans the administration had for a heavy-lift rocket.

Already lawmakers are preparing to fight Obama's NASA plan. On Wednesday, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R- Texas, said she would introduce a bill that would force NASA to fly additional shuttle flights beyond the final five now scheduled while NASA works on developing the next generation space vehicle.

Mark K. Matthews in Washington contributed to this report. Robert Block can be reached at rblock@orlandosenitnel.com or 321-639-0522.